Kennedys, Bedouins, Russians...does Monaco really change?

“Hollywood anti-semitism” uttered by a Jew- that ought to go into the dictionary as the definition of a contradiction.

That was rich, Jack.

Truly, truly rich!

Looking forward to seeing the film “Water”.  Thank you.  Imagine this but it’s actual as well, I threw out my t.v. months ago.  However I’m spoiled like everyone and these days I need ‘moving pictures’ too.  So there was a void to fill suddenly sans t.v. 

Now all I do is rent foreign films and watch them on my DVD player.  Wow, I can’t imagine now (but it’s actual too) how I sat and watched the boob-tube for so many years.  Conversely I feel today like a weight has been lifted off the top of my head. Even if in an establishment now having a drink and a t.v. is on or often multiple t.v.’s I literally can’t look at them for too long, a few moments before experiencing the weight returning to the top of my skull, and turn away.  Ah, my withdrawl is complete.

The French today are wonderful film makers as well. I don’t think, no I know I have not rented yet a bad French film, although on that fast track some are even better than others.  Most are excellent but the one that springs to mind at this moment for a recommendation is called “A Loving Father.” The Italians are good at it too, and one ought to see “Remember Me: My Love”, a film 2 ½ hous long that’s worth every minute of it and goes by as if it ran 90 minutes.  It’s easy to watch such films twice within a matter of days to see what one might have inevitably missed.

Dean Martin’s son was an officer pilot in the California Air National Guard (I believe) when he lost his life in an air crash. It’s a very dangerous part-time job to be sure!

I met Janet Leigh shopping at the old Abercrombie and Fitch sometime around 1969.  She was breathtakingly lovely. She and I discussed men’s wrist watches and I had everything I could do to avoid stammering. I’m sure I’m not the only one to find her marriage to Tony Curtis a bit off-putting.

Tak’san I’m going to name drop too, since you do.

I almost grew up on 5th Avenue my siblings did but I was the oldest. So I only spent my High School years there, living next door to Jackie. My sis walked to school everyday with Caroline and her secret agent (whose name I won’t mention since he’s not a public figure.) Caroline as I recall had dinner in our place a couple of times and some of them went skiing with us, once or twice including the Lawfords. I remember at dinner once when Caroline flipped her plate onto the floor by accident. That was funny. Her elbow came down upon it, and her fork went flying too.  Once I got assigned to get my sister from Jackie’s place and met Jackie.  Very charming, beautiful, rather ethereal she was actually in bed with the flu sitting upright. I forget what she said it was something about something to tell my folks.

I thought Caroline was interesting and my sister told me she had a crush on me (bad taste) I was just an older boy.  Maybe she liked my uniform from military school and when I always had to walk our German sheperd?  I don’t know.  I thought it was silly then.  I can tell about our vacations out to the Beverly Hills Hotel to visit with Liz Taylor & her brood.  But save it for another post.

Another great piece, Taki! I used to live directly opposite Janet Auchincloss in Georgetown, so bits and pieces of Lee and Jackie have a special resonance for me.

I have hopes, maybe not too high perhaps, that Obama will rein in the American war machine loose in the Middle East.

Ahhhhhhh ! Playing tennis under riviera’s sun in 1960. Does anyone have a time machine ?

I was told in Italy Dean Martin was of Italian stock: Dino Martino. But perhaps it was a joke. And calling Hollywood anti-s. is rather another joke than a contradiction, right?

Government does not save people.  I guess this includes New orleaners.  And those who work for GM, Ford and Chrysler, all three at the brink of bankruptcy as I read just now.  Ideological purity is rather nice, except when you look around and there is nothing left to be ideological about.

dino martini (dean dropped the “i"). A lot of Italians do in America. Not all in Hollywood are semitic.

I have no idea what his actual first name was or is spelled but his last name was Martini … and like many Italians he became Martin.  This is what I had read somewhere, I didn’t know them.  Perhaps Taki might know?

On the other hand as a kid visiting Liz Taylor and her kids when we were all alone playing around the property of The Beverly Hills Hotel, I gave her kids ‘trick gum’ which tasted great but made their mouths, lips and tongues all purple for a couple hours.  I remember just standing there as Liz was sunning herself on the veranda and her kids telling on me.  When I explained it was harmless, Liz just thought it was funny.

I’m spooky, I’m afraid even to this very day, but harmless… mostly.

What can I say? All during my life, I’ve been brushed by greatness, but it never stuck, happily.

Hey, I dated a girl whose mother dated Dean Martin, so there!
Foreign movies that are far superior to Hollywood:
a French movie about a “spring,” just great, can’t think of the name, help me!
German flicks: Mostly Martha, The lives of others
Anything Bergman
Can you folks recommend anything? I have netflicks....!

For R.C. Cheeks -

I’m of the W. C. Fields tradition, the best time to KICK a man is when he’s down. So as soon as you blithely say ‘help me out.’ I have to muster all of my new christian strength in order to do so.

Ok, try the French Film “Wild Camp”.  It’s a metaphor for whether or not France should commit suicide now, as their beloved el’Presidente Sarcasm err… I mean Sarkozy would have them do.

How’s that.  ‘Don’t call me a good samaritan, *not.’ (As Yoda would say.)

Tak’san, I watched the drip, drip, drip (almost) water torture of the movie you recommended “Water”.

I suppose it was at that cinematic pace (& over 2 ½ hours) on purpose to indicate what that experience is like albeit it was probably over done in that regard? I don’t know. I’m just guessing a better movie maker might have made it slightly more poignant by making it less difficult to sit and view. ?

For all we know, Taki, since not being of their culture, it might have even been more endurable for the characters than for us viewers since they walk around in almost the somnolent [religious] state of ‘believing’ it all to be “illusion.” Until at the end the character ‘Demi’ was it-?-has the quasi-epiphany of suspecting it’s not just illusion; after the 9 year old “widow” is given over to the Brahmins to be molested.

Even Ghandi at the end in the final scene expresses to the audience his own sea change i.e. ‘he used to believe God was truth, but now he believes Truth is God.’ And this tips the character ‘Demi’ (if I have the name correct) into giving the raped 9 year old “widow” over to the hero/or protagonist leaving on the train with Ghandi.

Of course at the end even Ghandi doesn’t have it right yet, he just became his own contrarian.

It’s even simpler and more profound: Truth is truth; God is God – err… who would have thunk it?

But if it’s a trilogy maybe they’ll get to that [epiphany] in Water II (what the Greeks & the Jews could have told them two thousand plus years ago.)

Tak’san, blesses, but if that’s the best film you’ve ever seen you either produced it, or haven’t been hanging out with myself enough? No wonder even the ‘British’ had their way with them??????

Taki as to my comment directly above this one, I notice you did *not say in yours ‘Water’ was the best film you ever saw, but rather ‘among the best’.  I guess I’m also a bit more inured by now to the suffering brought on by misguided cultural ‘beliefs’ bumped up to the level of the sacred often because it facilitates the predation of the ruling class upon the rest of the population.  (E.g. in the West these days “free enterprise = Capitalism” etc., etc.) Personally, again I must be thicker skinned, you all couldn’t sleep afterward, but I slept like a baby since I no longer had to be watching the drip, drip, drip tortuous cinematic pace of the film.  Just curious, how do you all sleep about Capitalism, these days?

Taki: You have had a hell of a life. Dean Martin’s real name was Dino Crosetti and his father was a barber in northern Ohio.

Hey original jack I had 1/2 of it correct if you’re correct ‘dino’.

When you say taki led a ‘hell’ of a life, is that the operative word. did he suffer
terribly or something, or is that meant to be a ‘good’ thing?

Just wondering.

Neither yourself (whom I respect) nor taki (whom I respect) are rather flowing or fluid
in engaging in direct on-going responses for whatever the ‘reasons’.

So I don’t expect an ‘actual’ conversation.  I guess I’d better go back to my ‘widow’
colony, right - for future ‘use.’ ? come on, I kid, I kid.

Guys, get more fluid, either strap on or take off the pair of balls, whichever vorks.

original jack - you go first.

Martini Van Buren!  WOW!  I can’t wait to tell my bartender.

Jedesto, your bartender just cut you off - you’re balmed, bud.  We’re gonna get’ya a taxi.

But thanks this IS what passes for intelligent, flowing conversation today in the West.

Folks, the few are so rich they think they’ve gone back to Heaven, already, ‘where words are no more and even the holy scrolls cannot contain the mysteries therein.’

We’ll get ya a cab, bud.